“You think you’re the only one with tricks up your sleeve? I bet even with full use of your blood magics, she still knocks you on your ass. You’re too arrogant for your own good. I can only hope you lose that arrogance before someone takes it from you.”
Devon finished fumbling with his tie, deciding it looked good enough. “How is it?”
“I’m sure you’ll have her swooning by the end of the night.”
He grunted, “let’s get going.”
Together they left the third floor penthouse suite Devon and Arachne had constructed in the cell house. It had turned out alright, all things considered. It had a nice sized bedroom, a room for books, and a room for potion brewing. It was no train depot, but it would do for now.
Best of all, it was out of Eva’s house. If he woke up in the middle of the night to catch Arachne staring at Eva’s sleeping face, he was going to be sick.
Arachne hadn’t been allowed inside since his penthouse’s completion. Shackles had been set up around the entire top floor. Eva had started having irritation when she crossed them. An unfortunate but not unexpected side effect of his experiments. Hopefully she would never be completely jailed by them. If she were, it wouldn’t be that big of a setback.
Speaking of the demon, it stood just outside in the night air. Thanks to his work, no lights inside the building shined their light outside. Moonlight was all that illuminated the complex. Upon seeing Eva, it immediately lifted the girl into its arms. Eva didn’t care or even react in any meaningful manner. She smiled at the demon and wrapped an arm around its neck for stability.
“Let’s get going,” Devon grunted once again.
— — —
“The only way that could have gone worse is if you straight up attacked her.” Arachne quivered beneath her shirt at her anger. Eva patted her back. “Did you have to antagonize her so much?”
“She asked personal questions, I asked personal questions back.”
“You didn’t have to ask her
“This was a sorry excuse for a meeting. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you ruined that book yourself to get me on that date.”
“It wasn’t a date,” Eva protested. She frowned and after a minute asked, “you really didn’t think the book was anything special?”
“If it had anything on it, it is long gone now. If the ink was meant to disguise patterns, the ink itself would have damaged whatever runes or symbols they drew regardless of what the runes were made out of.”
Eva leaned back on the bench. The sky outside the dorms felt gloomier than late August sky should be. “Something is going on in this town.”
“Zombies and suspicious characters? I’d be concerned if it was business as usual.” He sighed and glanced over at Eva. “These guys were really necromancers?”
“They smelled like death and zombies were running around.” Eva sighed as she watched the clouds drift by overhead.
The silence stretched between them. Not an uncomfortable silence. Eva had never felt that around her master. Just companionable silence. Until her master broke it.
“Excited for school to start?” he asked.
“Can’t wait,” Eva said. “Not even being sarcastic. This town is terribly dull. Maybe if a few more zombies were running around.”
“Dull is nice sometimes. Relaxing.”
Eva snorted at that. “Yeah. Please find some jobs and bring me along.”
“In a quiet little town like this?”
“In a quiet little town with necromancers.”
Devon sat up on the bench, leaning forward slightly. “You haven’t seen them since, right?”
“I can’t say I was really looking for them.”
“Maybe the family owed them money. They turned them into zombies as an example.”
“And the kid?”
“Kidnapped. Sold or used for parts to sell and recoup whatever losses they had.”
“Bleak.”
“There’s only one problem with my theory.”
Eva leaned forward to match his posture, forcing Arachne to reshuffle herself.
“No one noticed. No example could be made when no one noticed.”
Eva frowned. “Why tell me your theory if you’re just going to turn around and say its wrong in the next breath?”
Her master ignored her. He stood up and began pacing. “Why did no one notice? Did the family not have friends or relatives? Did the kid not have school? Did the parents not have jobs? You said a window was cracked? Even without that, how could a smell as bad as you say it was not be smelt outside the house?”
“I didn’t smell it myself. It could have been exaggerated.” Her words fell on deaf ears. She knew they would. Devon got like this sometimes.
“And the zombie,” he said, turning to her, “tell me again what happened?”
Eva recounted the story Juliana had told him as best she could.
“Where did the zombie come from? Your friend said she searched every room in the house until the master bedroom. And it just shows up right behind her? That doesn’t sound like a house full of zombies. That sounds like a trap.”
“A trap for who?”
Her master sat down and leaned back. “Don’t know. Could have been a relative or family friend. Maybe even your friend if she is a well-known urban explorer.”
